Amanda Weston is furious having being caught up in a traffic jam on the Redheugh Bridge each morning for weeks now and blames new traffic lights for not working properly.

Instead of her usual journey of just five minutes, the crossing has been taking her around 40 minutes.

She said: “I, and thousands of others, who commute by car over the Redheugh Bridge into Newcastle each day are being subjected to traffic jam misery that’s far worse than that caused by recently completed major roadworks on the A1 nearby.

“At 7.45am each weekday, over the last few weeks, the half-a-mile journey over the bridge has taken around 40 minutes, rather than the usual five to 10 minutes previously experienced.”

The traffic at St James' Boulevard in Newcastle where there's a new traffic light system causing a tailback of traffic over the Redheugh Bridge

And she claims the cause is “the new smart traffic lights” on St James’ Boulevard.

She says Newcastle City Council has admitted to her that they are not working correctly and that there is a traffic monitoring exercise underway to reassess the sequence and duration of the lights.

She added: “These new traffic lights have also cost thousands of tax-payers’ money.”

“These new lights are in the process of being co-ordinated to the wider network so we can improve our control of the traffic flows into the city centre for the tens of thousands of people in cars and buses who access our city centre every day.

The traffic at St James' Boulevard in Newcastle where there's a new traffic light system causing a tailback of traffic over the Redheugh Bridge

“This junction is also crucial for people crossing the road to access Newcastle College and the start of the academic year may have led to slightly longer queuing times for traffic.”

He added: “With any new traffic lights, it can take a little time to get the sequencing right which is why we always monitor new lights as standard practice and our engineers will be on site this week to make further adaptations to balance traffic flow.

“As safety on our network is our priority, we would ask people to bear with us as we firm up the timings to further improve the efficiency of this important junction.”